Communication Performance

Leasing teams are the front-line to representing a property. They are tasked with managing not only the physical curb appeal of a property, but also the personal curb appeal. This often comes in the form of ensuring every email, text message and phone call is followed-up with in a timely manner—or at least, one would hope so.

According to LeaseHawk data, more than 49% of all phone calls are missed by leasing offices and nearly 87% will not leave voicemail.

And the statistics get more alarming: Millennials now outnumber baby boomers in excess of 10 million, according to Pew Research. Combined with Generation Z, they account for 64% of all renters and hold high expectations for customer service.

Zillow research reports that 73% of Millennials say they expect a reply from a leasing office within a day or less—with many expecting to hear back within just a few hours. Plus, 35% say that they will move on to the next apartment option if they don’t hear back within their desired response time.

“35% of Millennials will move on to the next option if they don’t hear back within their desired response time.” – Zillow Group Research, 2017

It’s a challenge to keep up with these expectations. Leasing teams need to be equipped with the right tools to respond and track their communication performance, and owners or executives need a platform to measure improvement. Start by asking these three questions as a simple guide to improving communication performance.

1. Are daily communication actions being completed?

Daily communication actions performed by leasing staff are essential to nurturing prospects. These actions include responding to new inbound email inquiries or text messages and calling a prospect back if their call was initially missed.

These may seem simple, but they can quickly become unmanageable at high volume. Utilizing a CRM can help leasing professionals manage and prioritize communications. Goals, such responding to all inquiries by the end of each day, are easy to track in applications like the LeaseHawk CRM.

Business intelligence software can give owners or executives visibility to track these goals. The new Action Required dashboard in HawkEye® BI, tracks the movement of inbound and outbound communications portfolio-wide and by individual employee. With just a simple glance, managers can identify which sites or employees are doing a great job and the ones who are letting the ball drop.

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2. How long does it take to respond?

Speed to lead is all too important when trying to win a new renter. If a prospect reaches out to an apartment and does not receive a response within their desired response time—you can most likely say goodbye to winning that lease.

According to LeaseHawk data, the average leasing agent takes up to 39 hours to respond. This is a disappointing number when compared to the expectations of renters stating they want responses within hours, not days.

Calculating a leasing team’s average response time can be almost impossible without the right tools in place. The Response Time dashboard in HawkEye BI captures all the data needed to easily report on the average response time of sites and employees, including emails, text messages and phone calls.

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3. How often are prospects followed-up with?

The ratio of outbound communications sent by leasing teams should far outweigh the number of inbound communications they receive. After all, it takes far more than just one follow-up to nurture and close a new lease.

However, it’s far too common for leasing professionals to get into a habit of responding and closing the communication until they hear back again—if they hear back at all. For this reason, tracking communication volume is becoming a high priority for an increasing amount of management teams.

With the help of the Volume dashboard in HawkEye BI, this can be easily tracked. It makes identifying which sites and employees are sending the correct ratio of communications a breeze. It even displays if an agent is consistently marking communications as “no response required” within the LeaseHawk CRM—a red flag that an agent may not be following best practices for optimal communication performance.

Measure Improvement with HawkEye Business Intelligence

Providing better customer experiences through communication is key for leasing success. If it is difficult to answer these three questions, HawkEye Business Intelligence can help.

The new Communication Performance dashboards offer greater transparency into employee performance, allowing property executives to see exactly how many calls, texts and emails are being responded to and how long leasing agents are taking to respond.

Read the press release for more information about the launch of HawkEye Business Intelligence Communication Performance dashboards. Or, fill out of the form below to see them in action for yourself.

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